Queen of the Eight Banners

Part 1, Scene 1 - Present

Ilha tosses and turns in her bed. Her limbs are restless, but a marrow-deep weariness pervades them. Her nerves tingle, swarm like bees panicking in their hive, and her legs twitch and writhe beneath her blankets as if seeking an escape. Her heart thuds steadily in her chest, yet with each pulse her chest cavity quivers, as if every heartbeat rocks her. As if every beat takes her whole body's effort. Her head feels thick and as murky as the cup of tea and milk beside her bed.

So hard to think, is the one thought that coalesces. In Hu. Gui and even her native Gol oddly elude her.

She is no longer feverish. Her throat no longer rough with growths. The shaman women found nothing identifiably wrong with her. Yet her nerves jingle like panicking bees searching for a door and her limbs are as heavy and weary as if she has been swimming fully-clothed again in the Kerul river.

Ilha gasps in a breath and pushes herself into a sitting position. Tears of frustration sting her eyes. She closes them and tries to picture a calm wind stirring ripples across Kerul river's surface, the craggy hills jutting up around it. Tranquil. Green.

Another breath. Another. Deep, even, she orders herself. Why is peace so hard to shape? It is a battle, a wrestling of the murky chaos to the ground. Hold it still.

For one brief moment it almost works. Her thoughts order. Her breathing smooths like a fish slipping through water. That moment teases her hope. Then her grip slips in one vibration--

and she is captive, not captor.

She pushes back the blankets, stands up and totters, stumbling in bare feet against the chilly floor to her writing desk. If she can't squelch or beat back the simmering panic, then she will release it. Memories, chaotic images and feelings fight for precedence the moment she picks up the empty scroll and sets down on her knees. She smooths the rice paper flat, opens her jar of ink and finds a brush, holds back her sleeve in the Gui manner, searches, writes, overwhelmed even by this task she gives herself,

How can I write what happened?

She closes her eyes and feels Dorgide's hands smoothing over her hair, the way his fingers gently loosened and unraveled her braids. Firelight warmed her cheek, her side. His presence was a wolf behind her--strong, watchful.

But like a bird, the memory flits away, leaving her bereft.

She swallows hard, writes slowly, erratically,

I pick up my brush to form the letters, lovely Hu words with branches, leaves and roots.

She hesitates, trying to put words to the tangle of images, memories, but none come.

But I cannot. So I shift my fingers, dab and stroke the ideograms of the Gui people. Perhaps their orderliness will help.

Why did he have to die?

I scrabble at parts, clutch at memories and details, she writes, as if the writing could somehow increase her effort to catch them.

Yet the written words seem to take shape on their own, strangely apart from the flock of magpies scattering inside her in a hundred different directions. She regards all the words blurring together on the page. As she reads them over, somehow they fall short of capturing the strange chaos she fights to express. Empty of meaning, they do not describe the murky picture of herself within.

Frustration tightens her shoulders, makes her breath come shallow and fast.

She grits her teeth and tries again, yet falters,

Too much. There is too much. I am overwhelmed by the flood of everything. Dulled emotions. Thoughts. How can I make this coherent if I cannot find coherency in myself? How could you follow the swiftly, shifting spirals and--

Breathe. I need stillness. Breathe.

The brush lifts, hovers and speckles the page. Drip, drip, drop. Then down. Wet bristles against paper.

I was not always like this.